Owed
by tastewithouttalent
Summary: "It isn't that Gokudera is waiting for Yamamoto." Gokudera doesn't wait for Yamamoto after school any more than he looks forward to seeing Yamamoto in the mornings.


It isn't that Gokudera is waiting for Yamamoto.

It's nothing like that at all. He can go home whenever he wants, if he had anything better to do than what he's doing right here. But he wants to read, and if that happens to be happening in the highest corner of the bleachers arranged around the baseball diamond, well, sunshine is supposed to be good for you, right? He doesn't think too much about the way the occasional breeze would make his reading much harder, if he were looking at the page more than five seconds out of every minute, or the fact that he's far more invested in the high metallic _ping_ of the baseball players hitting pitches than in anything that's going on in the context of his book. He has a book open, and he has an excuse, and that's enough, even if the back of his neck is going sticky with sweat from the heat.

He's more comfortable here, after all.

It's not hard to notice his presence; there's no one else up here, as there usually isn't, and if Gokudera catches Yamamoto looking out in his direction a handful of times it's not like he's going to admit to watching the other boy closely enough to notice when his head turns out to the nonexistent audience, isn't going to admit to doing anything but reading the book open on his lap that he hasn't touched in minutes. By the time the club members are drawing in from their outposts on the field it's been almost a quarter of an hour since Gokudera turned a page, the book creased from too long held open and the dust that has caught in along the spine. It makes Gokudera frown, once the team has vanished from sight and he looks down again, and he invests himself in the process of trying to brush the pages clean again, resorting to an extra piece of paper from his bag in an attempt to clear the particles from the inside spine.

It's the bleachers themselves that give Yamamoto's approach away. The metal creaks with any major motion, giving Gokudera enough warning to look up as the other boy bounds up the steps three at a time.

"Gokudera!" Yamamoto chirps, coming in around the edge of the bleacher while Gokudera slams his book shut to cover what he was doing. "Have you been waiting here all this time?"

"I wasn't _waiting_," Gokudera snaps, shoving his book back into his bag. "I was reading. And didn't you see me, anyway? Don't ask questions you already know the answer to." He glares up sideways at the other, frowning as Yamamoto drops to sit beside him, so close the dusty knee of his uniform bumps Gokudera's jeans. "Why are you still in your uniform, shouldn't you change first?"

"I didn't want to make you wait for me," Yamamoto says, as easily as if he always says things like this, which, well, he does. "I can always change once I get home."

Gokudera rolls his eyes. "Yeah, and now I have to walk with you all dusty and sweaty. I should make you stay on the other side of the street just so I don't have to deal with you."

"Aww," Yamamoto laughs, "But then we wouldn't be walking home together."

"It's not like it matters," Gokudera snaps, looking away and back out at the now-empty baseball diamond. "You'll just be waiting for me outside in the morning anyway. Why don't you just stay at school after morning practice? You'd save yourself a trip."

"Mm." Yamamoto's leaning in closer, his shoulder bumping the sleeve of Gokudera's jacket. Gokudera knows the expression on the other's face without having to turn to see the setting-sun gold in his eyes or the soft pleasure curving his lips into a smile. "I like seeing you in the morning," he says, the words warm with sincerity on his tongue. "It's nice." His hand shifts, fingers brushing against the top of Gokudera's knuckles; Gokudera looks down, at the line of Yamamoto's tan fingers against his own painfully pale ones, and doesn't pull his hand away.

"I can't let you just walk back to meet me every morning for no reason," Gokudera says without looking up. The words sound harsh but they feel warm, embarrassingly soft and affectionate on his tongue. He doesn't say _that wouldn't be fair_, doesn't point out that Yamamoto meeting him every morning means he _has_ to stay after school, just to keep from owing the other boy still more when his debt is already greater than he'll ever be able to repay. Him not saying it is just another charge to that endless generosity, another tether keeping him perpetually orbiting the warmth of the other's constant affection.

Yamamoto is still watching his face when Gokudera looks up from the pattern of their fingers. His hair is paler than usual, dust caught on the dark strands to turn them soft instead of the ink-black they usually are, the sunlight clinging in his eyes until the hazel looks infinitely warm, like there's a whole spectrum of color underneath the caramel-gold. Gokudera knows he'll give in to the unconscious request in those eyes, knew it before Yamamoto ever sat down, and there are still people on the field, still passers-by that could see them, if they look up at the right moment.

When he leans in to press his mouth to the sun-warmed friction of Yamamoto's lips, to taste the whimper of surprised delight off Yamamoto's tongue, he finds he doesn't care about that at all.


End file.
